


Ten Things Derek Hale Knows About Stiles Stilinski That No One Else Knows

by verucasalt123



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: College, Fluff and Angst, I promise, M/M, Most characters only metioned, Slash, but only a little angst, this one kind of ran away on me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 21:10:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meant to be a short companion piece to my last 10 things story, but I got kind of carried away so it's about twice as long. Sorry. Also, I devour fanfic from this genre but this is only my 3rd story in this fandom, and it's the middle of the night, so there is no beta. I welcome concrit. See end notes for contact info if you have any :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Things Derek Hale Knows About Stiles Stilinski That No One Else Knows

1)  
It wasn’t an easy thing to explain, and Derek had tried many times. Stiles just never let up. The best answer Derek could come up with for the repeated question about what his _scent_ was came out something like “You smell like **you**! Boy. Hormones. Sweat, more prevalent when you get together with the guys to play lacrosse. Also uh, citrus-y kind of, and something like grass and that chemical smell from your medicine underneath everything else.”

Stiles thanked him for finally answering the question, but Derek knew there was something about his answer that Stiles didn’t like. He wanted to pursue it, but he had to leave for a four day trip to meet with another pack. 

He did not come home the same Stiles that he left. By the time he stepped off the elevator onto the floor of their apartment, he could hear it. Stiles was crying and his heartbeat was abnormally fast. 

“Stiles! What the fuck? Are you sick?” Derek asked, immediately landing on his knees on the floor in front of where Stiles was huddled up on the couch crying. 

Even through his tears, he managed to reply. “Oh. Oh, Derek, I’m so glad you’re home. I missed you so much, all I could do was sleep and cry, it was so hard.”

“Hey, come on, why didn’t you call your dad if you were lonely? Or Scott or _anyone_?” 

“Didn’t want anyone else to know. Thought I’d be ok on my own. The first two days I was fine, really, but then yesterday I woke up like this. Can you tell, though? Can you smell it? I mean, not smell it?”

The truth hit Derek like a sucker punch. “What did you do, Stiles? Where is your Adderall?”

“Flushed it, babe. For real, I’ll be okay, a few more days, most of the websites said, and I’ll adjust to not taking it anymore.”

“So, I tell you it smells like chemicals, you assume that’s a bad thing, and your brilliant plan is to flush medication that was _prescribed to you by a physician to treat an illness_ and stop taking it.”

Stiles just nodded, and though his heart rate was still very fast, his eyes were half-closed. 

“You are an idiot. A gorgeous one with whom I am deeply in love, but still an idiot”, was Derek’s response when he stood up.

Derek took Stiles’ phone, pressed the contact entered as **MedzDr** , asked the nurse if she’d call Stiles in a refill, and went back to tell Stiles he was going back on his meds immediately. “I’m not gonna tell anyone about this, I swear. Just you and me. But if you ever do anything this stupid again, I will not hesitate to call your father.”

The look on Derek’s face was deadly serious, and that’s because he really meant it. For now, he could be the only one who knew about this. Just the threat of the sheriff finding out Stiles did something so dangerous, especially for such a ridiculous reason, was probably enough to guarantee no repeat performance.

2)  
A few weeks shy of high school graduation, when the unresolved sexual tension between them was so thick it was almost palpable, Derek generously offered his kitchen table as a place for Stiles to study for finals. There were people painting in his house and it was, in Stiles words, ‘so not study-like condition there’. Here, there was just the sound of Derek turning the page of his book.

Derek let him be, just stealing little glances here and there, until a little after six, when he suggested they order in pizza. Once it arrived, Stiles took all of his notes off the table so they could sit and eat together properly. He thanked Derek again for feeding him (his dad had another night shift), tried with all his might to be casual but it was useless with Derek. He could smell lust and arousal from half a block. 

There was nothing for it, really, so Stiles just leaned across the table and kissed Derek, disregarding the fact that he had green pepper and olive breath, because Derek had it too. After that, they forgot about pizza and homework and just about everything else in the world.

Later, their friends were busy exchanging cash as a result of the betting pool they had going for how long it would take for the two of them to get together ( _really?_ ). They all took turns guessing exactly how Derek finally got over himself and made a move on Stiles, what Stiles had done to get Derek to finally act on his feelings.

Neither one of them ever corrected anyone. They could have their assumptions. The truth was just for Derek.

3)  
Derek had been with Stiles to visit his mom’s grave once, on Mother’s Day, because Stiles had asked him to come. Derek had never been to the place where his family’s remains were interred, but he knew it was in the same cemetery. He thought it was really kind of nice, though, Stiles just sitting in the grass there by her tombstone, sipping on a milkshake and talking to her, introducing Derek, telling her about all the crazy things he’d been though since his last visit.

Another time, though, when he knew it was Stiles’ mom’s birthday, (or used to be her birthday, he guessed, he wasn’t really sure) he followed him there and just listened. It didn’t really sound any different than the last visit when Derek had been there with him. But when Stiles stood up and wiped away just a couple of tears, saying, “See ya next time, Mom”, he didn’t head immediately out of the cemetery. 

Instead, he stopped at the marble mausoleum with the all-black letters **HALE** inscribed at the top. Just as he’d done before, he sat down, crossed his legs underneath him, and said, “Hey there, Mr.  & Mrs. Hale. Just me again, Stiles. So, uh, I wanted to let you know that Derek is doing all right…”

With that, Derek bolted. He’d been asked to listen while Stiles talked to his own mother in the past, and that was one thing. But staying around while Stiles had a private conversation with Derek’s dead parents – well, that was crossing the line between “awww, isn’t that sweet?” and “I’m Chris Hansen and you’re on _To Catch A Predator_ ”.

And he didn’t say a word, it wasn’t necessary. As usual, Stiles was the stronger of the two of them when it came to emotional matters. So it was nice to have this little bit of Stiles all to himself, not even Stiles knew about it, and he was happy Stiles visited his family when he’d never once had the courage to do it himself. 

4)  
Their relationship was fairly new, and much to Stiles’ dismay, had not yet involved taking off any clothing below the waist. Derek wanted to take things slowly, though. At the Stilinski residence, it was an ordinary afternoon. The Sheriff was at work, Stiles was researching some freaky ritual and printing out everything that looked relevant, and Derek was…well, just kind of lurking. When the pages started to come out of the printer looking faded, Stiles called out (without looking away from his screen), “Derek, grab me a printer cartridge from the drawer in my cabinet, will you?”

It all happened at once, like it was unfolding in slow motion. Stiles swiveling in his chair to tell Derek _exactly_ which drawer to open, Derek already having opened the _wrong_ one, the room becoming completely silent for a split second. 

Barely suppressing his laughter, Derek looked straight-on at Stiles and asked, “Is there something we need to discuss?”

Stiles figured there was no reason to keep secrets about it, since he was hoping Derek would soon relemt and get into his pants eventually. “Fine. Yes. Those are ladies’ underpants. And I wear them. Not every day. Not on days we’ve got lacrosse practice or games. Not when we’re in situations where my clothes might get torn off by whatever monster we’re dealing with. Not when I go to the doctor, or whatever.”

“Stiles, your heart is racing, and you’re blushing so hard that it looks painful. This isn’t something to be embarrassed about. Honestly, the only thing odd about it is that most guys who like wearing these are into the satin and silk and lace and ribbons, you know, texture and all…”

“How the hell do you know so much about it?” Stiles asked, incredulous at Derek’s reaction. 

“I lived in New York City for years, man. You meet all kinds of people there. This”, he gestured toward the drawer he opened, “is not a big deal at all.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t like all that other stuff you said. I like those, the cotton boyshorts. They still feel like panties, believe me, they’re nothing like briefs or anything like that. I just think they’re-”

Even with his werewolf hearing, Derek had to ask Stiles to repeat the end of that sentence. “ _Pretty_! Okay? I think they’re pretty. I like how they feel, yeah, but mostly I like all the cool colors and patterns and designs.”

“So nobody knows this? Scott’s never walked in on you and seen them?” Derek was always very surprised when there was anything about Stiles that Scott didn’t know. 

“Thank God, no, never, and I hope he never does. I gotta tell you, man, he blabs constantly about his sex life now that he has one but the dude’s as vanilla as vanilla can get. Like, if there could be anything more vanilla than vanilla-”

“No more talk about Scott’s sex life, please and thank you. Your secret is safe with me, promise.”

Derek went home that night with visions of Stiles wearing those white ones with the stemmed cherry pattern on them. It might have weakened his resolve just a little.

5)  
You can’t avoid something that is pervasive in current pop culture. I mean, if you live in a cave and have no friends, maybe, but Derek didn’t live in a cave and he did have friends. So he’d seen all the Twilight movies. As tempting as it was to throw the television out the door, he wanted his betas to be happy.

Stiles _liked_ the movies, he’d explained to Derek. But not as much as he’d liked the books. That was kind of a thing with Stiles and books that were written as a series. If he read the first one, he had to read every single one of them. He was still trying to finish that fucking Dresden series. Everyone knew that if Stiles started something, he was damn well going to finish it. This was no news flash. 

So yeah, the big bad Alpha had a boyfriend who read all four of those campy vampire/werewolf/weird girl books. And he had been captivated by them. He inhaled them; sucked them up like a sponge, pulling all-nighters like he was going to have to take a test on the rules of sparkly vampire baseball. 

“It’s just so crazy to me that you read all four of them in less than a week. I mean, I know it’s not brain-challenging reading or anything, but that’s still pretty fast”, Derek said while he tried to find a way to snuggle even closer to Stiles than he already was.

“Okay, if I tell you something about that, uh, that whole Twilight series week thing, do you swear never to tell anyone? Like, swear on something important?”

Okay, then, this must be pretty embarrassing if Stiles was laying down conditions like that. “I swear on…on, uh, oh, I know, I swear on your sweet perfect ass that I will never repeat whatever embarrassing thing you are about to tell me.”

Stiles turned around from his ‘little spoon’ position to look Derek in the eyes. “I bought New Moon at Target on a Saturday morning, and finished it that evening, and the store was still open, so I returned it and used the store credit to buy Eclipse.”

And really, what did Stiles have to be so pissy about? Derek never promised not to laugh hysterically about it, he’d just promised not to tell anyone else. 

6)  
Stiles told Derek he’d given himself his own first buzzcut when he was twelve years old, using electric clippers he found at home. It was after a hospital visit when he realized almost all of his mom’s hair had fallen out from her cancer treatments. The first time she saw it, she smiled and said she loved him, but didn’t have the strength for much more than that. He thought Scott noticed, but never asked why because he was afraid of upsetting Stiles at the time. The sheriff never did notice, not until months later, and even then, it was a passing acknowledgement, nothing more. He had bigger things on his mind than his son’s choice of hairstyle. 

After that, he’d kept the very short, closely-cropped cut out of habit. Even after she was gone, it reminded him of his mom, made him feel like he still had this physical connection to her. 

The only reason Derek knew any of this was because he mentioned something he had no idea was such an emotional freakin’ minefield.

It was Christmas break from sophomore year in college and Stiles was enjoying his couple weeks of downtime. A few days with his dad, of course (which everyone understood) and a few days with Derek (which everyone also understood), then plenty of time for getting together with the whole pack. On his first night at Derek’s, both of them a little winded and dick-drunk, Derek ran his fingers through Stiles’ hair and asked, “Do they not have barbers at Davis?” with a smile. He liked this look. He did **not** like the reaction his seemingly casual question. Stiles sat straight up in bed, his heart rate highly accelerated, and walked directly to the bathroom. 

His quiet whispers of “Fuck…fuck fuck fuck, I can’t believe I wasn’t paying attention to this…” were crystal clear to Derek’s fine-tuned hearing. Stiles had left the door to the bathroom open, so he followed him in there, and saw the tears and the guilt-stricken look on his face. That’s when he told Derek the story. 

In return, Derek did the only thing he could do – he turned Stiles around, let his tears and snot soak into this chest, and said, “Hey, it’s been a long time. If it makes you feel better to keep it buzzed, then keep it buzzed. If no one’s made the connection by now, I doubt anyone ever will. But if you like the way it looks now, that’s fine too. I never knew your mom, but I’ve heard enough stories over the years to know that the last thing she would ever want is for you to feel guilty over something like a damn haircut, and you know that’s true.”

Derek handed Stiles some Kleenex from the bathroom counter and waited out the tears, then just brought him back to bed.

7)  
It wasn’t uncommon for the pack to gather at Derek’s apartment on Friday nights, and for them all to arrive before 9pm, and for Stiles to start arranging the evening’s snack trays as soon as he got there after school. They mostly contained baby carrots with ranch, chips, popcorn, trail mix and cans of sodas placed in strategic places around the living room. “Seriously,dude – sorry, scratch the dude part, I’ve learned my lesson, this one’s gonna be _epic_!

“That’s what you say every time. And every time, it’s the exact same thing. I still don’t get the appeal. The majority of our crowd watching this show about underwear-model hot monster hunters every week is made up of _straight male werewolves_ . People don’t seriously watch this garbage for the plot, Stiles.”

“ **Garbage**? Derek, don’t make me remind you of your reaction to Dean’s speech to Sam’s body at Cold Oak. I didn’t tell anyone, but don’t go around pretending like it’s a hardship for you to host Winchester and Friends here.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed when Stiles finished that last part of the sentence, picking up on the little skip in his heartbeat. “Wait a minute. It’s always been a pretty even split between those guys around here. Allison, Lydia, Isaac, Danny and Jackson are Team Sam and Scott, you, me, Boyd and Erica are Team Dean. Something’s up with you. Are you defecting?”

And there it was again, but faster, and for longer – skip skip skip – “No, Derek, I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of Team Sam!” Derek knew Stiles was telling the truth there, but still...something was going on. 

“Stiles! So that’s why you love Season 4 so much, why you watch the first episode over and over? Not because you’re so happy to see Dean back, it’s because of Castiel! You like the angel more than the brothers, don’t you?” 

There really was no need to ask the question because Stiles was already flushed red with embarrassment from his neck to his ears. “I am still on Team Dean, all right? There is no Team Cas. Remember when Erica tried to make a Team Ellen? Though I’m surprised that you didn’t know I’d think a guy with black hair and a stupid coat who’s bossy and stalker-y and says a bunch of cryptic and mysterious shit and no one wants to trust him at first would be really hot”, Stiles said, ripping open a bag of cheeseburger-flavored Doritos. 

“Derek?” Stiles asked with that sweet doe-eyed look, blinking those long lashes, and _fuck_ , he saved that look for special occasions. Derek had no power over that look. Hell, no one had power over it. The girls would pay cold hard cash for cheek-sweepers like the ones Stiles had. Leaning across the back of the couch to kiss Derek’s lips, he continued, “We will never speak of this again. Right?”

No other options, really. “Of course, Stiles. These aren’t the droids I’m looking for.”

“Hey, pop culture reference, I’m so proud!” Stiles climbed across the back of the couch then, so they could make out until their first guest arrived. Boyd may have been traumatized, but at least he’d never find out about Stiles and his crush on Castiel.

8)  
The second semester of their junior year in high school was a flurry of activity completely unrelated to any werewolf activity. All of Derek’s betas, and the humans he considered to be part of his pack now too, were getting ready to take the SAT, listing pros and cons of this college or that college, some of them trying to figure out what their chances were of even getting into college (Scott and Erica, mainly). Most of the teens did fairly well academically; some had parents who could afford to pay tuition at any school their kid chose. Derek was responsible for Isaac’s college education and could easily support him but had already said he’d have to get a job if he wanted extra spending money. Sure, Derek had plenty of money, but he wasn’t going to turn Isaac into some spoiled, entitled brat before letting him loose on the world as an adult. 

Even then, before either of them had admitted anything about their attraction to each other, Derek was curious about Stiles and the choices he was making. 

Finally, one day he had an opening when it was just Isaac and him in the apartment. Derek had started out looking over applications Isaac had filled out, then casually moved the conversation around to the places where his friends had applied. As usual, Isaac was happy to volunteer the information. 

“It’s looking like Scott’s doing at least the first year at the community college here, Erica too, then maybe transferring to a university after that. Lydia applied to Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Princeton, and Stanford, but she’s still got the Georgia Tech application as a ‘safety school’, who knows why. Danny and Jackson are both looking at San Diego State. Boyd won’t go far, he’s thinking UC Davis, so if he gets in there, maybe he can room with Stiles. That would be pretty cool, right?”

Derek was, at first, honestly thinking that he’d heard wrong. Not that UC Davis wasn’t a perfectly fine university, because it certainly was, but there were at least ten schools better than that just in California, not to mention the rest of the country. “Why do you think Stiles is going to Davis?”

Shoving the last of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich into his mouth, Isaac finished chewing and said, “Something about not wanting to be too far from his dad, I think he said. He hasn’t applied yet, obviously, it’s too early, but it’s not like he won’t get in.” Isaac seemed to think this was really not a big deal at all. 

Obviously, this was the first order of business the next time Derek and Stiles had a conversation not involving anyone else. “Isaac was talking about everyone looking around at colleges, said something about you planning to go to Davis?”

Heartbeat increase. Immediate. Very noticeable. 

“Uh, yeah, I don’t want to go too far away.” Now this, while technically a true statement, was not telling the whole story. Derek understood how close Stiles was to his dad, how protective he was, with his dad being his only parent. Everyone, including Derek, assumed that when Stiles said he wanted to stay close to home, he meant that he didn’t want to be far away from his father. It would be another two years before Derek (and only Derek, because the sheriff would have kicked Stiles’ ass, twenty years old or not, if he’d known the truth) would find out that Stiles never applied for any out of state schools because he also didn’t want to be far away from Derek, either. 

 

9)  
Ask anyone who knows Stiles what his favorite candy is, and they will tell you that it is Reese’s peanut butter cups. Scott will tell you that there was a phase in middle school where Red Vines almost gave those a run for their money, but still, Reese’s cups topped the list. They had to stay in the fridge, because if they got melty, they were, in Stiles’ words, ‘ruined’. He even had a system – popping the soft center out carefully, setting it down on a plate or napkin, eating the ridged chocolate circle, then taking little bites of the chocolate covered peanut butter middle. He didn’t chew them, just let them kind of disintegrate in his mouth while making obscene sounds. Stiles’ father had actually once asked him if he’d like a few moments alone with his candy, and Lydia had threatened to pour a bucket of cold water on him. Now, you can even buy bags of teeny tiny little Reese’s cups, and Stiles inhaled those things like they were Pez. Still had to be cold, though. The kid had always loved his chocolate, but would not abide such a travesty as chocolate at room temperature.

On a day during spring break of Stiles’ freshman year at college, he and Derek got roped into keeping an eye on one of Boyd’s younger sisters for a couple of hours. The weather wasn’t too bad, and the kid was ten, so she didn’t need too much attention. They walked from Derek’s place to the corner store to get snacks and sodas on the way to the local park. Stiles got a bottle of Mountain Dew (Derek couldn’t help but cringe every time he saw Stiles drink that nasty shit) but declared it too warm outside to eat chocolate. Boyd’s sister, though, picked up a package of Fun Dip. 

And yeah, Derek had above-average observational skills, but even without them, if Stiles thought he was being subtle while he was watching the kid dip those sugary sticks into the red and purple powder like it was an edible utensil (in this case, it actually was), he was very much mistaken. Later, with the kid safely returned to her family and his boyfriend naked and sweaty in his bed, Derek figured he’d ask. “So. Fun Dip? I thought you were a chocolate guy. Well, chocolate and peanut butter guy, anyway. I’ve never see you buy it, or even say that you like it.”

Stiles rolled onto his back and sighed at the ceiling. “I don’t. I mean, I don’t buy it. Or like it.” **LIE** Derek gave him a look that broadcasted exactly what he was thinking. “Fine, I don’t like the…Dip part of it, I guess. The powdery stuff. I could totally go without that. I like the white stick thingies, you know, the ones that come with it that you use to get the sugar powder out of the pouches. But it’s stupid, because they all have three pouches and only two sticks. And it feels wasteful to buy the whole thing and throw out the packets so I can just eat the other part”, he finished, waiting for Derek to tell him how ridiculous the whole thing was. 

“Right. So you’re not wild about the pure sugar that’s ground up into powder and dyed strange colors, you just love the solid form of what I am sure is nothing but concentrated sugar made into sticks. That’s the gist of it?”

Turning toward Derek, Stiles said “Yes, that is, in fact, _the gist_. So now you know. Please allow the rest of the world to go on thinking that peanut butter cups are my favorite, because they really are, seriously! Fun Dip is NOT my favorite, because I only like one part of it more, not the whole thing.”

“Solid logic there, babe. We’ll go with that.”

And if Derek sent him a care package at school two weeks later filled with nothing but the sticks from Fun Dip packages, there was no reason at all for anyone else to know.

 

10)  
Everyone knows that Derek loves Stiles. 

But only Derek knows that he’d give his life for Stiles without a second thought, although he’d much rather get old with him, spending their days fishing or sitting on rocking chairs, spoiling grandchildren.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If y'all spot anything horrid or way OOC, please get in touch at http://verucasalt123.livejournal.com/ or http://www.tumblr.com/blog/verucasalt1233.


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